Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Just like every day.
And if that made my chest get a little tight, then it made my chest get a little tight.
C’est la fucking vie, right? But even knowing that, I couldn’t help peeking at the atlas, which was almost as old as I was, as I circled around the couch and plopped down in the middle. Right in front of it.
It was already open, just waiting for me.
I can do this.
All I had to do was choose somewhere. Fucking anywhere, or just about anywhere, as long as it was within the continental U.S.
Eyeing the stained pages, I tried to decide if I should close my eyes and randomly point at a place or eeny-meeny-miny-moe like I’d used to when I’d been a kid and my grandparents had let me pick where we’d head to next. They’d tried to make moving around as much of a game as they could, at least at the beginning. To be fair, I hadn’t really seen it as too much of a chore until about middle school. Bouncing from town to town had been fun for a really long time.
Then, in high school, it had become a necessity.
Now, it made my eye twitch.
And made me want that ice cream even more.
But I knew I needed to move, and I really was planning on it. It was just easier said than done. Six months ago, I’d told myself I couldn’t leave because I wanted to harvest my garden first. I’d put so much work into it; I couldn’t let it go to waste. Then, I had convinced myself that I should wait until after the holidays. Moving during winter would suck. What if it suddenly snowed? My car wasn’t all-wheel drive, so I needed to take that into consideration too.
Then there was the biggest factor: I hadn’t been able to pick a place yet.
It might have not helped that every time I’d sat down to make a decision, I’d done the same thing I had tonight—I spent all of two minutes total looking at the map before I’d come up with something else that needed to be done that was just as important. Like running. Or folding the mound of clean laundry that always seemed to pile up even though I was the only person in the house and I usually wore my pajamas all day unless I had video lessons with my students. Then I got real fancy and put on a nice shirt while I sat in front of my computer in sweatpants or shorts.
It wasn’t like it mattered where I went. It was time to bounce.
It was one of the rules I’d been raised with after all: Don’t stay in one place for too long.
Lifting the back of my palm to my face, I dragged it across my forehead before dropping it onto my lap as I blew a raspberry with my mouth.
My stomach clenched again.
It doesn’t mean anything. It was a coincidence; my body was being annoying and had nothing to do with me moving. There was no reason for me to believe I needed to panic, get in my car, and peel out of here. It had been a long time since my stomach had done this funny shit. It doesn’t mean anything. It was the cheddar. Or maybe it was a sign that, yes, I needed to get out of here at some point in the very near future.
That made sense.
Maybeee… I could spice it up and move east. As long as it wasn’t anywhere warmer than here, I might even be able to run during the day instead of risking my life every night. I had never been farther east than Texas.
I needed to think about it a little longer to be on the safe side.
But just a little longer. A day or two max. No more than three. It was a good plan, I thought, as I picked up the glass of water I’d left on the edge of the table and took a big gulp. In the middle of taking another drink, I grabbed the remote from beside the map and turned on the TV.
“…I’m tellin’ you it was got-damn ANGELS! The po-lice tried to say it had to be some weather phenomenon. Call it whatever the h-e-double-l you wanna call it, but that weren’t no storm out there. It were angels!”
The reporter on the screen blinked, and at the same time, the corners of his mouth twitched almost unnoticeably, but I caught it. “Sir, why would you think it was angels and not a member of the Trinity you saw through your window?”
The elderly man lifted his arms and let them drop at his sides. Behind him was an arid landscape with some blurry horses in a corral. “Come on, boy, use some common sense. Ain’t no lightnin’ blottin’ out the got-damn sky the way this’un did. D-uh. Tried to tell me too it was one of ’dem cape-wearers. What them ‘heroes’ gonna be doin’ around here? Nothin’! That’s what! Lived here my whole [beep] life and never have I seen one of ’dem comin’ ’round these parts. We ain’t got no crime worth dealin’ with. Puh-lease. This here was HUGE! You couldn’t see nothin’ but this light in the sky. No reason it woulda been one of ’em Trinity. They can’t do that kinda thing. Folks been watchin’ too many movies.”